


Undercover

by MeganMoonlight



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Tattoo Parlor, F/F, Feelings Realization, Femslash, First Meetings, Getting Together, Pre-Femslash, Pre-Relationship, Undercover, Undercover as a Couple
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-05
Updated: 2018-10-05
Packaged: 2019-07-25 17:12:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16201994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MeganMoonlight/pseuds/MeganMoonlight
Summary: Rosa is a tattoo artist. One day she meets Detective Amy Santiago, and ends up helping the NYPD solve a case.





	Undercover

**Author's Note:**

  * For [romnovs (tashatops)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tashatops/gifts).



There were four people observing Rosa’s tattoo parlor. Two seemed to watch her in the morning, the other two in the afternoon.

At first Rosa thought it was all a coincidence, but when three days in a row she had spotted the same people walking down the street whenever she had arrived in the morning or had left the parlor in the afternoon, and all four of them had tried to look as unsuspicious as they could, which obviously had made her suspicious.

The first pair was clearly serious about their job. The tall, intimidating guy usually stayed close to larger groups of people walking by or sitting in nearby food places, while the woman’s main tactics was based on changing outfits, sometimes even twice a day, and she clearly paid a lot of attention to each look. The other two guys for some reason coordinated their costumes quite often, and they seemed to change their approach to stake-out every afternoon, with various degree of success. 

While all four were doing a good job at trying to blend in, paying attention to details and reading people were something Rosa was very good at. Also, her job made spotting patterns and specific features even easier. As a tattooist she had to pay a lot of attention not only to pictures themselves, but also to people who came to her to get their tattoos done. Often she had to learn what each person liked so that she could create a perfect design for them, and thanks to years of experience, her intuition rarely failed her. That was why she was sure she indeed was being watched.

One morning, five days after she had noticed that her parlor was under observation, she finally decided that she had enough. Once she was done with an annoying… customer who kept using the most awful lines to catch her attention, she left to find out what was going on.

Sipping hot coffee, she discreetly looked around, searching for the woman who usually watched her during that time of the day. Once Rosa finally spotted her target ten minutes later, she left the coffee shop and hid behind the nearest building, waiting for the other woman to walk up to her.

Just as Rosa predicted, the woman chose the same way she used the day before. She adjusted her thick-framed glasses slowly, as if she was in a spy movie, and Rosa barely stopped herself from rolling her eyes. Giving the other woman a second to look around, Rosa, still holding a cup of coffee, walked up to her quietly.

“Why are you watching me?”

The question clearly startled the woman, because when she turned around quickly, she grabbed the strap of her handbag with one hand, and with the other she nervously adjusted her glasses once again. She was kinda hot, in a nerd-ish way, now that Rosa got a closer look at her.

“What? Oh, no, no. No. I’m not doing that at all,” she said, blinking rapidly a few times. “I was just passing by, searching for… food! Vegan food, yes. I heard that there’s a great place somewhere nearby, and…”

Rosa just raised one eyebrow at that, and the woman seemed to notice that Rosa wasn’t buying her story at all.

“…well, okay. I was just…”

“Is everything alright?”

Both women turned their heads to see the intimidating guy who Rosa assumed was the woman’s partner, as he walked up to them. Only when he was standing right next to them his eyes met Rosa’s.

***

About an hour later, once they received permission from their captain, Detective Amy Santiago and Detective Sergeant Terry Jeffords introduced Rosa to Detective Jake Peralta and Detective Charles Boyle. All four were indeed watching Rosa’s parlor, and Rosa finally got to know why.

As it turned out the NYPD found out that a new ring of drug dealers appeared in the city, and according to the sources its members were contacting various business owners, for some reason mostly focusing on tattoo parlors, small galleries, and other art-related places, most likely to offer them some sort of business deal. The NYPD still needed more evidence to charge anyone, so they tried to pinpoint where the gang members could go next. Rosa’s parlor was close to the area where they usually appeared, so the detectives assumed that her place would be visited at some point as well. 

Once asked about this, Rosa said that she hadn’t noticed anything or anyone suspicious in her neighborhood, nothing out of the ordinary, at least, and in the end she agreed to help with the investigation as well.

***

Two days later the team came up with an idea on how Rosa could assist them with the investigation. Each detective was to meet her to talk about their hypothetical tattoos, which would give them a chance to visit often, and to watch what was going on not only inside of the parlor, but on the outside as well. 

The only person whose task differed from the others’ was Detective Santiago, who was to pretend to be Rosa’s girlfriend. It allowed Detective Santiago, Amy, to spend a lot of time in the parlor and keep an eye on everything.

Over the next few days Rosa found out more about each of the detectives than she ever wanted to know, and for some reason some of them made it their side quest to get her to tell them more about herself.

Sarge was professional and had a great eye for details, so Rosa ended up following his advice on some of the projects they talked about. Boyle was far too excited about the whole undercover work, and after the first few meetings Rosa knew much more than she wanted to about where various members of Boyle’s family had tattoos. Gina, who, according to the plan, was Rosa’s temporary secretary/assistant, kept texting and taking pictures of various pages of Rosa’s portfolio, but Rosa didn’t mind, as long as the woman didn’t scare off any potential customers. Jake, just like Boyle, couldn’t stop talking most of the time, and he kept trying to find out more about her.

“Come on. Everybody likes pizza. What are your favorite toppings?” Jake asked, looking at the sheet of paper Rosa was drawing on, before walking up to the shelf where Rosa kept reference pictures. “Pepperoni? Bacon? Spinach? All of it?”

Completely ignoring Jake’s question, Rosa focused all her attention on the picture before her.

“Hand me yellow and green pencils,” she said, never looking away from the sketch of a mermaid tattoo she prepared for one of her new customers. “Behind you, top shelf.”

“These? Oh, wow. I haven’t seen that many pencils since Scully had accidentally grabbed the wrong backpack and instead of a bag full of money, he had stolen some girl’s backpack,” Jake grinned, handing Rosa the wooden pencil case. “You drew this in half an hour? That’s so cool!”

“Thanks,” Rosa answered shortly, taking out a few pencils to add some color to the sketch.

“Wait, I know! If I give you a reference picture, could you draw a picture of me as a superhero, so I can hang it on my door? How cool would that be?”

She was about to tell Jake to shut up, when she heard the front door open.

“Hi! I brought sandwiches and some other things we might need.”

From the corner of her eye Rosa saw Amy walk into her studio, holding a paper bag. Before she could ask Amy why did she bring food, she heard Gina yell: “Sandwiches are here!" 

Rolling her eyes at the announcement, Rosa looked at Amy. “Why?”

“Oh, I just thought you could use a break. And I made a list of things your parlor could use, so I decided go shopping,” Amy said, clearly proud of herself, as she unpacked the sandwiches, apples, a bottle of water, two notebooks, post-it notes, and a stapler. “Also, I thought it would be helpful if some of your neighbors knew that you have a girlfriend, so that it won’t seem strange that I’m staying here almost all the time. Just in case someone wanted to do some background check.”

Rosa had no idea what that had to do anything, but well.

“And you needed to buy notebooks and post-its to do that?” Jake walked up to Amy, unwrapped one sandwich and bit into it right away.

“Well, they have colored pages so they might be useful for the front desk. You can use each color to write down different types of meetings,” Amy told Rosa, smiling brightly.

“And the stapler?” Rosa asked, leaning back in her chair.

“Because every workplace needs a stapler. You never know when it may come in handy.” 

Rosa kept observing Amy until the other woman adjusted her glasses, took the stapler and the post-its, and left the room, most likely to carry everything to the front desk. Also, was it just her, or did Amy glance briefly at her before she left the room? And was she blushing? Rosa’s stomach did a weird flip at the thought.

Deciding not to think about it any longer, Rosa went back to her project, but before she turned her attention back to the picture, she noticed Jake grinning at her. Idiot. She should go back to ignoring him.

***

For the next two weeks the NYPD detectives were hanging around Rosa’s parlor, Amy being the most frequent visitor. After years of working on her own, it was strange to have so many people there when she worked, but each of them grew on her. A bit. They were still annoying though. It was weird. Even weirder was that she didn’t mind it all that much.

She also learned that Amy Santiago was a nerd. Rosa had never considered nerdy people hot before. 

Also, Amy took her undercover assignment very seriously. She was an attentive pretend-girlfriend. One time, without a reason, she even bought Rosa a gift. It was a DVD of one of the action movies Rosa mentioned she liked, because it was full of gratuitous violence.

All of this gave Rosa… feelings. Crap. She didn’t want to think about it.

***

As the third week of her undercover assignment started, Rosa was working on a project of a back tattoo for one of her regulars, while Amy sat at the front desk. That was when Rosa heard the front door open, and then Amy’s voice greeting whoever come in.

“You the boss here?” 

“Oh, no,” Amy replied right away. “My girlfriend is. I don’t really know much about tattoos. Or drawing. Or painting.”

Rosa frowned at the tone of the woman’s voice. She never sounded like that when talking to customers, which caught Rosa’s attention. What she also noticed right then was how much attention she was paying to Amy in general in the course of these two weeks. That was not the time to think about feelings though. 

Putting her pencils away, Rosa was about to get up from the desk and check what was going on, but then Amy appeared in the doorway. She was clearly trying to look like she wasn’t nervous, and Rosa wondered how much of this nervousness was real, and how much was just pretending.

“There are two men here. They want to talk to you.”

As she said this, she adjusted her glasses and winked, as if trying to give Rosa some sort of a sign, then not very discreetly pointed to the front desk with her thumb. Rosa really should finally tell Amy that she was good at many things, but she really had to work on her acting skills if she wanted to do serious undercover work.

When Rosa walked out of the studio, right away she saw two tall men who were dressed like some wanna-be gangsters in some stereotypical action flick. They looked at her like they weren’t sure what to think, clearly underestimating her, and she felt the strong urge to punch them both in the face. Fortunately for them, she managed to stop herself. Barely. 

As she watched the men assessing her, she clenched her fists so hard that her fingernails were digging painfully into her skin.

After a minute or two, the taller of the men finally spoke up.

“You’re the boss, then?”

“Yeah. What’s up?”

“Our boss is a fan of your work, and he wondered if you wanted to meet and talk about working for him.”

As soon as the man opened his mouth, it became clear to Rosa that there was something wrong with him. If he was not one of the drug dealers the NYPD looked for, then he definitely was guilty of something else.

“Babe, leave,” she told Amy, never looking away from the two newcomers. Just as they planned, Amy left the room right away, hoping the two men would feel safe enough to tell Rosa more about what were they doing in her parlor. Only after the door closed after Amy did Rosa hide her hands in the pockets of her jacket, discreetly turning on the recorder on her phone. “Why should I agree?” 

“’Cause if you help us, we’ll help you,” said the shorter man.

Rosa kept looking the man in the eye, pretending to assess her options, before she shrugged.

“Sure. Let’s do this.”

The man told Rosa when and where the meeting with his boss would take place, and after she had all the information necessary to hopefully catch the drug dealers, Amy took her back to the precinct to come up with the next part of the plan.

***

Two days later, Rosa was ready to meet with the ring leader. Jake and Amy went with her as her back-up, and they were to enter the building a few minutes before she did. Sarge and Boyle were to appear some time after, just in case.

The meeting took place in a seedy pub that was, as it turned out, owned by the leader’s cousin, which was just far too predictable. Someone really watched far too many movies.

The guy’s name was Arthur Cowell, at least that was how he introduced himself. Two bodyguards, introduced as Rick and Frank, were standing near him, and no one else seemed to pay any attention to them, though Rosa was sure the pub was full of people working for Cowell. However, as soon as he started talking, Rosa realized that while Cowell indeed had money, he was also an idiot. He was an art collector, a fan of tattoos, and with his money he wanted to buy as many places specializing in various types of art as possible, so that he could gain the title of the most popular art collector in the US.

Just as Cowell was to tell Rosa more about his ridiculous plan, the two guys who had visited Rosa’s tattoo parlor earlier started arguing and screaming at each other. One pushed the other into a nearest table, which turned out to be occupied by Jake and Amy. 

To stop himself from falling down the man grabbed Jake’s shirt, ripping off one sleeve, but it wasn’t enough. His head hit the floor hard, catching attention of everyone in the pub. Jake leaned in his chair to check if the guy was okay, which was when his badge fell out from his pocket, landing loudly on the floor. 

“Oh, damn it.” 

“Cops!” Cowell yelled, standing up from the table right away. “Frank, get them!”

Just as Frank reached for his gun, both Jake and Amy got up from their seats to try to stop him. That was when Cowell ran out of the room. Rosa wanted to run after him, but then she saw Rick pointing his gun at her. Ducking quickly behind the nearest wall, she tried to look for something she could use as a weapon.

Everything happened quickly after that. 

To get Rick away from people who were busy hiding and running out of the pub, Jake jumped on his back. Soon, they both ended up on the floor, trying to overpower one another.

Using the racket made by Jake to her advantage, Rosa grabbed a purse that must have been left by one of the customers, and ran towards Frank, who was trying to help his brother. In a few moves she overpowered the man, ripped off the strap of the purse and tied his hands behind his back, before using his own belt to tie his legs as well. Just as she get up from the floor, she heard Amy calling her.

“Rosa, duck!”

As she did so, someone’s gun got off.

A few seconds passed, and when Rosa raised her head, she saw Amy kicking a gun out of large, bearded man’s hand, before she threw him on the floor, and cuffed him. It was… hot.

Soon, majority of Cowell’s people were cuffed as well, and Boyle, who appeared out of nowhere, brought in Cowell, cuffed as well. Apparently he also called back-up, because soon a group of police officers came in, escorting all the present gang members out of the building.

Rosa saw Amy exhale quietly as she licked her lips and put her hands on her hips, clearly proud of herself, and Rosa couldn’t look away from her smiling face. Damn. 

“Hey, you okay?”

Blinking rapidly, Rosa frowned at Jake, who, even thought he had a split lip and a large bruise on his cheek, was grinning widely. 

“Yes.”

“Amy? Really?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Saying that, Rosa dusted off her jacket and left the pub, her thoughts coming back to Amy from time to time as she waited outside for the others.

As it turned out later, Arthur Cowell was an egomaniac, who inherited a large sum of money and decided to invest it all in drug dealing almost right away, because he thought he would get even richer this way. He assumed it would allow him to buy every piece of art he liked, and never realized that surrounding himself with dangerous people would be, well, dangerous to him. His two bodyguards, brothers Rick and Frank Baron, saw how easy it was to manipulate Cowell, and they planned to let Cowell believe that he was the one with all the power, before tricking him into giving them everything. While everyone focused on Cowell, the brothers would have disappeared with all the money, never to be seen again. Sadly, their plan didn’t work.

Three hours later, after she finally signed all the paperwork and told the detectives on duty all she knew about the case, she was allowed to go home. However, as she left the precinct, she sighed, irritated. 

Damn it all. Why couldn’t she just turn her brain off? She couldn’t help thinking about Amy, about Jake’s question, and, well, feelings. She really needed a drink. And she probably needed to eat something, too. 

Just when she decided to go eat something, she saw Amy leaving the building as well. The other woman smiled at her as she walked up to her, and it definitely wasn’t the same smile she often directed at Gina, or Jake. 

Crap. Apparently she did have feelings for Amy Santiago after all.

And… was Amy hiding a lock of her hair behind her ear while looking at her? Really?

“I’m gonna go grab something to eat,” Rosa heard herself say. “Wanna come?”

She watched Amy exhale, clearly relieved. “Oh, I’m so glad you asked! I saw you looking at me earlier, but you’re really, really hard to read sometimes, and I wasn’t sure if I’m reading this right, you know? I mean, yes. I totally want to go.”

Rosa felt one corner of her mouth rise in a smile. She couldn’t help it.

“Cool.”

And it really was.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know what happened. I saw you mentioned a tattoo artist AU, an image of tattoo artist!Rosa appeared in my head, and... I decided to go with it.
> 
> I hope it's not too bad, and that you'll like it at least a little bit *hugs*


End file.
